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Articles by Eric Dumo
The blind Nigerian doctor leading kids out of blindness
At a glance Childhood vision loss, in many cases a result of preventable infection, is a critical health challenge in Nigeria and across Africa. In Nigeria, just 4.4% of people access eye-care, meaning many children with poor vision have never been diagnosed, or offered interventions that could prevent them falling behind in education. That’s something Dr Chibueze Anugwom, who is blind himself, has set out to change.
In northern Nigeria, a deadly diphtheria outbreak delivers a grim warning
At a glance A diphtheria outbreak in Nigeria's Niger State in September 2025 claimed the lives of 10 children in the space of a few days. The deaths prompted a rapid response from local health authorities, with a vaccination campaign and community sensitisation quickly put into place. “We are proud of our response this time and are committed to protecting every child from killer diseases such as diphtheria,” said the local Director of Health.
In Kaduna, Nigeria, all hands are on deck to fight an mpox outbreak
Amos Kintaro, 60, knows to appreciate what it means to be able to move around freely. For many weeks following an encounter in March 2025, the retired government worker mostly confined himself to his two-bedroom apartment in Romi, on the outskirts of Kaduna city. Kintaro had been helping a gunshot victim seek medical care at a hospital in the city that fateful month, when he contracted a disease. Rashes and blisters popped up across most parts of his body in the days after the incident.
In Nigeria’s Kebbi state, vaccines are curbing a deadly meningitis outbreak
On 29 April, in the crowded emergency isolation ward at the General Hospital of Gwandu in Nigeria’s Kebbi state, four-year-old Ahmed Kaliru received a shot of the pentavalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine, Men5CV. Four frightening days had passed since he had first been admitted to the ward, a victim of a brutal meningitis outbreak sweeping Gwandu since early March. The injection signalled the hope of lasting relief for his family.
Nigerian army wives take the fight to cervical cancer
In July last year, Rekiya Dalhatu, aged 12, unexpectedly learned two important things about her own future. The first was that she would one day become a medic in the Nigerian army. The second was that she would not, unlike thousands of women in her mother’s generation, fall victim to cervical cancer. These revelations arrived more or less together.
Hope and despair on Nigeria’s malaria frontline
Aina Ogundare tightly clutched her crying three-year-old baby, Tunmise, as she waited to see a doctor at the Ikorodu General Hospital last Wednesday morning. Looking visibly worried and ruffled, the 34-year-old was surrounded by dozens of other women who had defied an early morning downpour to besiege this Lagos hospital in search of medical care for their loved ones. Laboratory test results confirmed that the little girl had malaria. “I cannot afford to lose her.
Lagos moves fast to quash cholera outbreak
Like a toddler learning to take the first steps in life, 45-year-old Lukman Adebisi stumbled side to side as he was supported out of a ward at the Mainland Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, one Tuesday earlier this month. On the morning of 20 June 2024, he had been rushed to the government medical facility after suffering severe abdominal pains and uncontrollable diarrhoea for days. “Most communities in Nigeria do not have a public potable water supply.
Vandalism, inadequate infrastructure cause hundreds of deadly fuel tanker fires in Nigeria
Paul Chette was returning home to his family one night in late April when a tanker carrying 33,000 litres of petrol collided with a truck along the East-West Road in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and exploded. From where the factory worker stood, everything in the inferno’s path seemed instantly reduced to ash. Watching the scene, the 51-year-old man could not hold back tears. The explosion had consumed five people, destroyed more than 120 vehicles and torched everything within a 500m radius.
Medics in the firing line: Nigerian health workers tell stories of courage
Zainab Barko's phone rang. A child in the small town of Gubio, about 70km south of Maiduguri in Nigeria's Borno state, was suffering convulsions. Gubio's streets can be perilous: the area is troubled by armed gangs. But Barko, a trained nurse at the government health facility in the town, didn't think twice. She raced out of the facility building as fast as her legs could propel her. "I fully understand how dangerous it is to work in this part of the state as a health personnel.
Yuletide: Eight security tips for festive outings
The festive season can be a time of joy that Nigerians come together to celebrate and party with friends, family, and loved ones, but for some, it can feel particularly isolated without close family or friends around them. For others, however, it can be a time for them to carry out their crimes. In this report, PUNCH Online gives you some security tips you must know this festive season. Don’t accept free rides or give free rides to strangers.
Nigeria’s HPV jab roll-out gathers momentum as wary mothers come aboard
Janet Olayomi was tired when she and her daughter Pelumi arrived home from the government health centre in Ibeku, a remote community in Ogun State, southwest Nigeria. Home was Moro, an agrarian settlement a stone's throw from the Benin border. They had walked the 13 kilometres to the health centre and back in the hot sun. "I had to embark on that journey because of the future of my daughter," Olayomi, a petty trader, said, pausing a few seconds to catch her breath.
Nigerian girls look forward to roll-out of cancer-blocking jab
Back in March, a group of medical volunteers gave a talk at 13-year-old Desola Kareem's school in Ogijo, a densely-populated town in Ogun State, south-west Nigeria. "For a long time, I lived with the fear of cervical cancer after the volunteers told us how the disease was killing young and older women," Kareem, one of the brightest pupils in her year, tells VaccinesWork. "They told us that many of us may not have children of our own when we grow up because of the disease.
“None of her granddaughters will have to experience this”: Cervical cancer in Nigeria
Just over a year ago, in November 2022, Aisha Rimi* was told that she was ill with cervical cancer. Rimi, a 57-year-old businesswoman, mother of four and grandmother of three, popular for her amiable and bubbly disposition, found her diagnosis a reality too hard to accept. "The worst part for us, her loved ones, was watching her in that pain and not being able to help.
BREAKING: Lagos building with over 800 rooms collapses, two injure
At least two persons are currently battling for life at a private hospital after a school-turned-residential building in the Ketu area of Lagos partially collapsed on Sunday. The building housing over 800 rooms with hundreds of residents known as Agboye Estate on Oduntan Street, Ketu, first caved in on Saturday afternoon following hours of rainfall that greeted most parts of Lagos.
How a Lagos community built on a garbage dump learned to keep safe from disease
Eight-year-old Adebiyi Orekoya ran like a trained athlete as he chased a small plastic ball with two other boys one sunny afternoon in June. It had been a few days since it last rained at Dustbin Estate, and the ground was dry, which meant Orekoya was allowed to play outside. Wet conditions, the boy and his friends have learned, mean a higher chance of getting ill.
Retired nurses turn reinforcements at short-staffed Lagos health facilities
When nurse Anike Mobola reached the compulsory retirement age of 60 and withdrew from her duties at the Ikorodu General Hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, she had several plans lined up ahead of her. Those will need to wait a little while longer. Rather than taking some well-deserved rest and getting to work on her retirement bucket list, a year later, Mobola is back at the same hospital, attending to the dozens of patients who visit the facility every day. It's a sacrifice she says she is happy to make.
In Ogun state, Nigeria, a new road offers babies a path to vaccination
Kemi Adekanbi was full of smiles as she stepped out of the Ogijo Primary Health Centre, Ogun State, in Nigeria's south-west region, on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 11. It was 14 weeks since the 31-year-old woman had given birth to her daughter, Jire, and the very first time she was bringing her baby to the health facility for an immunisation of any kind.
How to prevent an election-demic
Election day is looming, and Dr Femi Asunloye has barely rested in a month. Asunloye is a senior registrar at the Federal Medical Center Owo in Nigeria's Ondo state, a region hard-hit by the Lassa fever outbreak that has killed 37 Nigerians and infected 244 so far this year. He's worried it could be about to get worse. Some 93.4 million Nigerians are expected to head to the polls on February 25 to elect a new president and vote in a new National Assembly. Millions will travel, millions will cluster.
United in crisis: Nigeria battles diphtheria
Aliyu Buba was coiled up in his mother's arms as they walked out of the isolation ward on a Tuesday afternoon late in January. His eyes slowly flicked from side to side as the scorching sun battered his frail body.
Flood-displaced Nigerians rely on humanitarian intervention to stay healthy as outbreaks threaten
Residents of Ikarama community, in the Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA) of Bayelsa State in Nigeria's oil-rich South-South region, will not forget October 2022 in a hurry. That month, they lost their livelihoods and the roofs over their heads. Heavy rains pouring relentlessly for weeks wreaked havoc on the town and several other communities in more than 30 states across Nigeria, leaving behind a trail of destruction, displacement and death.
When greed governs, profits rise and buildings fall Original
Adekemi Adekunle was invested in her studies at Tai Solarin University of Education in Ogun State in Nigeria. She worked hard. But on the first day of May this year, at around 10.45pm, her life came to an abrupt end when the apartment building in which she lived in Lagos collapsed. Adekunle and nine others in the three-storey building were killed and scores injured. Despite being marked for demolition, and sealed four times by state government officials, the building remained inhabited.
Courage and duty in Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak
The last few weeks have been tough for Dr Femi Asunloye. The Senior Registrar at the Federal Medical Center in Owo, South-West Nigeria, has to work extra hours away from his family and loved ones, digging deep for the mental and emotional strength needed to deal with the situation. Since the spike in Lassa fever cases in Ondo at the beginning of this year, his life as a senior medical worker has taken a different and difficult turn.
Monkeypox, Lassa and a pandemic: Lagos fights off a new COVID-19 wave with vaccination drive
July 2022 was a busy month for Lagos and its 22 million residents. Apart from being politically-charged, like most big cities across Nigeria, as people registered for permanent voter cards ahead of next year’s crucial presidential elections, the continued spread of monkeypox and Lassa fever made the month one of the toughest of 2022. A fresh wave of COVID-19 infections from mid-July has made the situation even more precarious.
Food fears grow as African floods fail to subside
BY ERIC DUMO Africa could face increased food insecurity and an unprecedented rural-urban migration crisis if climate change-induced flooding persists, environmentalists say.
Africa: Food Fears Grow As African Floods Fail to Subside
Lagos — Africa could face increased food insecurity and an unprecedented rural-urban migration crisis if the climate change induced flooding persists, environmentalists say.
Food fears grow as African floods fail to subside
[LAGOS] Africa could face increased food insecurity and an unprecedented rural-urban migration crisis if the climate change induced flooding persists, environmentalists say.
Angels of hope battle monkeypox in Nigeria
Haruna Bashi, a young farmer from Boga in Nigeria’s Northern region, has a handful of people to thank for being alive today. One of these is Ahmed Kabir, leader of a four-man volunteer group that helps to spread important information about diseases and outbreaks whenever and wherever they surface.
NDDC unveils partnership with farmers, plans massive rice production
The Niger Delta Development Commission has said the region would soon become the rice belt of the nation. To this end, the interventionist agency has charged the firm running its multi-million-naira rice mill at Elele-Alimini, Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, the Elephant Group, to encourage local farmers in the Niger Delta to be fully engaged in the production of paddies.
African governments ‘shun home-grown, young innovators’
[LAGOS] Africa’s young inventors are yet to receive the support they need from their governments to enable them to create home-grown technological solutions to problems, innovators and experts say. Usman Dalhatu, a 21-year-old undergraduate student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna, is a perfect example of Africa’s untapped technological talent.
Nollywood star, Bruno Iwuoha, dies at 68
BY ERIC DUMO Nollywood actor, Bruno Iwuoha, has died at the age of 68. He passed away on Saturday after a prolonged battle with diabetes. A statement signed by the Director of Communications, Actors Guild of Nigeria, Monalisa Chinda-Coker, reads, “It is on a sad note that we announce the passing away of our elder colleague and active member of AGN Abuja, Bruno Obinna Iwuoha. -Advertisement- “He died in the early hours of this morning (10/04/2021) after a prolonged battle with diabetes.
Bad roads, insecurity could wreck COVID-19 vaccination
[LAGOS] Weeks ahead of the potential arrival of 41 million COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria, there are already many problems on the ground that could hamper successful distribution, experts say. Nigeria has so far recorded 139,748 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 1,667 related deaths, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. And the figure will likely rise further following a surge in fresh infections in recent days.
SPECIAL: Lagos Hospital Where Patients' Relatives Are Forced To Pay GOtv Subscription, Pregnant Women Abandoned To Deliver On Their Own
Resting his jaw on his left palm while flicking his eyeballs from side to side that hot afternoon in front of the tiny shop, it was not so difficult to feel the grief racing through his mind. Though over three weeks since that sad experience, Akeem Fatai, a petty businessman, has been unable to fully overcome the pain and stinging feeling it has left behind.
Family Of Electrocuted UNILAG Student Oluchi Anekwe Said She Saw Her Death Coming
Long faces, broken spirits and an atmosphere filled with grief welcome you to the home. Tucked in a reserved part of Okota, a sprawling suburb in the heart of Lagos, the neighbourhood has perhaps seen more visitors over the last few days than at any previous time in its history.
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